Toilet paper

When it comes to folding, toilet paper has some major drawbacks, like the awkward rectangle dimensions instead of the square normally used as a basis in origami. It does have a really big advantage though in being presented right in front of you on a moment you don't have anything else to put your mind on for a while. And as the alternative is being flushed down the toilet it doesn't really matter where any random folding takes it.

All the foldings above are freely improvised while on the loo, and are all folded from a single sheet of toilet paper (without cutting or tearing). 

Eye candy

I am not very fond of candy. Last week I had a sudden craving though. After initial resistance I allowed myself a small bag of one of every type I fancied. Eating them was a small joy but drawing them was even more so a treat!

Paper airplanes

Last summer I was struck by an article in de Volkskrant on the collection of found paper airplanes by Harry Smith, which he collected in the streets of New York. It really moves me to imagine something as fragile and transient and at the same time very personal and human fluttering on the winds in busy Manhattan streets. And the idea of someone noticing this silent poetry and jumping in front of cars to snatch it from oblivion. Ever since reading the article I hoped to find such an airplane myself. A couple of weeks ago I did, while standing high on a ladder cutting a yew hedge. A pale yellow triangle shimmered between the dark green needles. It was already partly laced by slugs.

Working on a larger scale than 'safe' journal pages!

Another art-form I use a lot in a similar way to drawing is the Japanese poetic form of Haiku. The middle one of the Haiku above translates roughly as:

the train rolls in through
patches of sun and shadow-
viscous summer air

I've been drawing a lot lately! Drawing has been an important part of my life ever since I was young. But in recent years it has been mostly so in an applied setting like drawing storyboards for films. But after reading Danny Gregory's 'The creative license' I rediscovered drawing as a daily practice: drawing for drawing's sake and as a powerful tool to keep in touch with my creativity and the world at large. These days I always carry around with me my handbound journal and some pens and watercolours, ever ready for a quick drawing!

I've been making my own paper! 

shredded bits of paper and cardboard 

making pulp using a kitchen blender

a freshly scooped sheet of wet pulp

a neat stack of home-made paper!

This Speckled Wood kept coming back to get its picture taken... (Bont Zandoogje, mocht je het je afvragen)

 

I'm finishing the bee hotel I started on last year. A bee hotel is a nesting opportunity for solitary ('wild') bees, of which there are more than three hundred different species, ranging from ant-sized to larger than a honeybee.

I've been canning cooking pears (Gieser Wildeman). I put them in syrup with cinnamon and other spices, lemon peel and camomile infusion.

 Some weeks ago on a walk through the park I came across these enormous red beech trees that had been cut down. The growth rings on the trunks weren't clear enough to count, but they must have been at least a hundred years old. Next to the pile of logs was a great heap of cut off branches and twigs that were already bearing buds. I found it a bit sad to realize these would never blossom. So I took one twig home and put it on a vase (an old mustard jar really). I decided to at least make a drawing of it as a tribute. But I also hoped it would blossom, like an easter branch. My expectations weren't very high, but after a week or two one of the buds actually opened! As I write, more buds are opening and some are starting to burst small, hairy leaves.